Sama Names Tony MacDonald as CFO and Molli Barnes as Senior Vice President of Global People

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- (March 23, 2022) -- Sama, the AI company delivering accurate data for ambitious AI to Fortune 2000 companies, today announces two strategic additions to the company’s senior leadership team. The company announced it appointed consulting CFO Tony MacDonald to serve as Sama’s Chief Financial Officer and named Molli Barnes, the former Chief People Officer at PATH, as its Senior Vice President of Global People. 

Tony MacDonald is a senior finance and operations executive with over 25 years of accounting, financial planning and analysis, and sales operations experience. He previously served as Sama’s Chief Financial Officer from 2014 to 2018, where he led the company’s transformation from a nonprofit to a for-profit AI training data powerhouse. After departing from Sama, MacDonald served as the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at NPX, a company dedicated to transforming how impact is financed in the nonprofit sector and beyond, before embarking on a 10-month stint as a consulting CFO for a number of clients, including CrowdSmart.ai, and Delfi Diagnostics. 

Molli Barnes brings over 20 years of leadership experience in global human resources to Sama. During her decade-long tenure at PATH, Barnes led a team of HR leaders across Africa, Asia, and the United States to empower local talent and drive purpose-focused innovation and strategy. Her wealth of HR experience includes leading a DEI strategy that put equity at the center of how PATH operates and building a world-class talent acquisition program that fueled PATH’s global expansion. Earlier in her career, Barnes served as the Human Resources Director for People For Puget Sound, a non-profit organization dedicated to the environmental preservation and rehabilitation of the country’s largest estuary, and the Senior HR Manager for international law firm Heller Ehrman LLP.  

“Both Tony and Molli each bring over two decades of expertise in their respective fields, including solid track records of driving growth, innovation, and creating a positive impact through their leadership,” said Wendy Gonzalez, CEO of Sama. “Their addition marks an important next chapter for Sama as we continue to provide industry-leading data to pioneer the next generation of AI technology.” 

As one of the only B Corp certified AI companies, Sama’s double-bottom-line prioritizes social impact while providing the highest quality data for the world’s most ambitious AI teams at leading global companies including Google, Siemens, and Walmart. Sama was founded on the principle that talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not, and is dedicated to connecting underserved individuals to the digital economy. Sama has helped lift over 59,000 people out of poverty through skills training and AI work and the company’s social impact model was recently validated by an MIT-led Randomized Controlled Trial. 

”When I first joined Sama in 2014, bringing impactful employment at scale to underserved communities was an ambitious idea at most,” said Tony MacDonald, CFO at Sama. “Fast forward to today, Sama has changed thousands of people’s lives and is an industry-leading training data provider for the world’s largest companies. I’m truly honored to return to Sama and help propel the company forward as its CFO.” 

“Talent has no geographical boundaries, and I am excited to join a company committed to providing equitable opportunity and a work experience where all voices are heard,” said Molli Barnes, SVP of People at Sama. “As the SVP of Global People at Sama, I will leverage my passion for working cross-culturally to attract, empower and retain market-leading talent from around the world to drive Sama’s mission forward, while fostering a culture of inclusion and innovation that empowers every employee to thrive.”

Sama’s strengthened senior leadership team comes on the heels of the company’s $70M Series B raise, to scale its leading AI training platform while driving social impact. Last month, Sama announced the appointment of Facebook/eBay Veteran and Former East Palo Alto Mayor Regina Wallace-Jones as Chairwoman to the company’s Board of Directors. The company has also taken strides to transform the AI industry through innovation, and recently partnered with Mila, the world’s largest academic research center in machine learning, to solve key problems in AI development. 

About Sama

Sama provides high-quality training data that powers AI technology. The company’s platform is trusted by leading companies such as Google, Siemens and Walmart, to develop accurate machine learning models. Sama specializes in image, video, language, and sensor data annotation and validation for machine learning algorithms in industries including manufacturing and robotics, autonomous vehicles, entertainment, e-commerce, retail, and agriculture. Driven by a mission to expand opportunities for underserved individuals through the digital economy, Sama has helped over 59,000 people lift themselves out of poverty. Its training and employment program were recently validated by an MIT-led Randomized Controlled Trial. For more information, visit www.sama.com.

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